The end of an era

On Saturday I arrived in the UK with my family for a two-week long visit. By definition, this is not a birding trip. However, I was still hoping to keep up my birding streak. Until today all went well - I managed to get out every morning, birding sites east of Norwich such as Potter Heigham Marshes (see eBird checklist here), Rush Hill Scrape (here) and Breydon Water (here). While I did not see anything exceptionally rare, I actually enjoyed those mornings out pretty much - good numbers and fairly large numbers of species.

Classic Norfolk scenes - Chinese Water Deer plays around with an Eurasian Crane, while a Northern Lapwing flies by:

Speckled Wood

Yesterday I was playing around in a campsite near Hickling with this large Hornet-mimic Hoverfly (Volucella zonaria):

Check those fantastic structures on its forehead:

When my phone started going crazy, with this:

Potential mega: White-throated Bee-eater this morning in Eilat by Sarah Deutsch, first for Israel if accepted@BirdGuides @RareBirdAlertUK @BirdingInIsrael @TarsigerTeam #ofcourseimnotinisrael pic.twitter.com/wnQVohmBxX

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) August 13, 2019

Sadly, today I was completely destroyed in the morning and couldn't get myself out of bed early, and was fully absorbed in family stuff all day. There was no way for me to get out birding, so today my beautiful 234 days of checklist streak ends. 

Arctic roly poly

This morning I made a small detour en route to work via Eccles with Dave. We arrived on site to find it very peaceful and calm, no baseball bats or rogue tripods in sight. The Coues' Arctic Redpoll showed immediately - the redpoll flock was feeding on some low bushes, seen through a hedge. At first views, head on, the bird was very striking - pale and frosty, with nice white undertail coverts and large white wingbars, and a small but deep-based bill:

The redpoll flock was very mobile and skittish. They moved between those low bushes, hardly seen through a hedge, the hedge itself, and a puddle where they drank briefly a few times. Never easy to get good views. Over the next couple of hours we saw our bird a few more times but always quite briefly. In flight it did show a large, clean white rump but I couldn't get a photo of it. Once it did pose quite OK for a few seconds. Note the single dark shaft streak on undertail coverts:

And small breast streaks on whitish background

Big white rump visible in this screwed up flight shot:

Partly visible here too:

Lovely bird! My first in the UK and I haven't seen them since I visited Scandinavia when I was a teenager. 

The redpoll flock was full of different forms and colours. It contained about 20 Lesser Redpolls showing some variation:

About 7 Mealy Redpolls were in that flock too. Some were beautiful, large and frosty males, but I couldn't photograph them. Those two allowed a quick snap but were not the most striking of all:

On the way, by Acle, we had two Cranes by the road. They did not like the fact we pulled over...

The autumn that keeps taking

Contrary to autumn 2016 that didn't stop giving, this year east coast birders are getting by the Gods of Birding for our sins and there is nothing here. Despite the lack of birds resulting from the consistent wrong winds, I went out with James to Wells Woods this morning. It was a sentimental morning - today we celebrated (just about) three years of friendship. Contrary to today, on 14 October 2014 we birded in proper fall conditions. Three years later, and I am getting older - didn't do a selfie with James!
Birding was slow and hard going. We worked Wells Woods properly but the few birds that were there on Tuesday had evidently cleared out. The only birds of interest were three Yellow-browed Warblers and two Firecrests. None posed for a photo. They joined mobile tit flocks and wouldn't settle. I was depressed by witnessing a twitch after someone spotted a Pied Flycatcher. And when people started asking directions for Yellow-browed Warbler, it was time to go.
Just as we walked back to the carpark we learned of four Eurasian Cranes heading our way, first spotted over Cley and Stiffkey. We quickly picked them up and they did the right thing, flying over our heads, calling 'hrruu!'. Again, the perspective - in the Hula Valley numbers today have built up to 15,000. But in Norfolk context, even though these birds are probably migrating from the Broads to Welney, it was still cool to see them.

The only other winged thing I photographed today - Red Admiral

Huuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa!

I had some work up in the north yesterday and today, so I managed to squeeze a few hours of birding at the Hula Lake (Agamon). This is such a great place and I miss it so much after working there for several years. It was good to meet good old friends too.
The lake itself held this flock of 16 Ruddy Shelducks among the hundreds of other ducks:

Several Coypus were feeding near the waters' edge:

Driving around the lake we bumped into this Bittern that was sure it was invisible:

Many Lapwings were in the fields and flying around:

I had several eastern Stonechats. This is a male variegatus:

And this was an obliging maurus-type:

The weather was very good and there were many eagles up in the air. Found this adult Greater Spotted Eagle perched on a low tree just before it lifted off:

This adult male Red-backed Shrike is two monthes late! It should have been in Africa already. Its' deformed bill must have disrupted its' migration plans. It was feeding quite actively though, so it might just make it.

There are over 30000 cranes at the Agamon nowadays. This is a small part of them, feeding in last seasons' peanut field.

On the way out this Snipe try to become invisible too: